Though very happy, they were very silent. Lady Grizel was sunk in reverie; Lilian was a little abashed, and Walter, who was turning over his thoughts for a subject to converse on, was becoming more perplexed, until relieved by Elsie's loquacity, which found an ample theme in the terrors of the famous gnome or fairy boy, whose appearance about that time had caused no small consternation in Edinburgh. On the summit of the Calton--as all the gossips of the city were at any time ready to aver on oath--he was heard at midnight beating the role to the fairies, who came forth from under the long dewy blades of glittering dog-grass or heavy docken-leaves, from crannies in the rocks, and mole-tracks in the turf, to dance merrily on the Martyr's rock, in the blaze of the silvery moon. And, worse still, this same devilish gnome, by the clatter of his infernal drum, summoned weekly from the four quarters of heaven, the gyre-carlins and witches to Satan's periodical _levée_, and often the benighted citizen as he wended up the long and dreary loan from Leith (to which the ruins of a monastery, and a gibbet hung with skeletons, lent additional terrors), paused in dismay, when the din of the enchanted drum rang from the dark rocks on the gusts of the midnight wind, and the troop of gathering hags astride broom-sticks and sprigs from a gallows-tree, swept like a storm through the air, bending strong trees to the earth, laying flat the ripening corn, and rumbling among chimney-heads, making the nervous indwellers cower under the bed-clothes, and tremble in the wooden recesses of their snug box-beds, while they murmured old charms against sorcery and the devil. Other witches of more aquatic propensities, were ferried across Firth and Bay in eggshells, sieves, and milk-bowies, to that damnable conclave, where plots were laid to blast their neighbours' kail or cattle, and work all manner of mischief, as the Records of Justiciary show. On all these appalling facts, Lady Grisel and Elsie descanted with such earnest seriousness, that Walter felt half inclined to shiver with the rest, when the wind rumbled in the chimney as if a flock of gyre-carlins were sweeping past it, to their _levée_ on the Calton, about the bluff black rocks of which Lady Grisel averred emphatically, she had repeatedly seen them swarming in the bright moonlight, like gnats in the summer sunshine; and after evidence so conclusive, we hope nobody will doubt it. CHAPTER XV. LOVE AND BURNT-SACK. HORATIO. 'Tis well, sir, you are pleasant. LOTHARIO. By the joys Which my fond soul has uncontrolled pursued, I would not turn aside from my least pleasure, Though all thy force were armed to bar my way. N. HOWE.